Wednesday, August 17, 2016

So, we have landed... ish. If there was ever a great time to use the word discombobulated, this is it for me. According to Google, discombobulate means "confuse or disconcert; upset; frustrate." I am not sure what to do or where to go and I spend a lot of time just sitting around thinking about what I should be or could be doing. There's a 50/50 chance I might actually end up doing it. In previous years, this was closer to 95/5, odds on me being motivated to do it. But motivation seems to have escaped me... but don't worry, I'm half-heartedly looking for it.

According to my Iwakuni friends who moved back to the States in the months prior to my arriving here, there is a definite transition period when moving back... especially when separating from the military, of course. Could take months. Oh, and apparently it is normal to cry at the drop of a hat. That's good to know because I was about to find a therapist to fix me... although, I am not sure how many therapists there are in this small town I am in. And I am probably related to most of them by marriage, anyway, so would that be a conflict of interest? Nevermind... I digress (which I have also been doing a lot of lately)...

There have been quite a few happenings in the past month since I blogged:

As I mentioned, we made it from Iwakuni to America. The spouse is officially on terminal leave. For those of you non-military types, that means he is using up his vacation time until his official retirement date of Oct. 31. Here is the last photo of him in cammies. Not sure if I am happy or sad about this. Which is how I feel most of the time these days.

We visited family and friends...

Did some (a lot of) shopping...

My attitude recently

I got into the Pokemon Go craze with my kids...

I did my best to avoid the political chaos that our country is suffering from...

We drove across country...

And now we are settling in to what I like to call Country Life:

We have moved in with my mother-in-law in rural Detroit Township, Illinois, (this is fine, people, I promise!) until we can get our bearings and figure out what we want to do with the rest of our lives. I had a unique house all picked out for us, and had been staring at it on Zillow for the past three months. Unfortunately, it sold the week before we arrived. Ugh. The housing market here is... interesting ... and we have not yet found anything else I am in love with. Meanwhile, we have our old house in Pensacola, Fla., that the previous renters did $6K damage to this year before their lease was "not renewed," so it is probably better that the home here is no longer available since any down payment we might have had just got sucked into our old home. We'd sell it, but the Pensacola market is lousy for sellers. Sigh...

And, finally, pending a favorable medical physical, the spouse will be heading out on yet another deployment (yes, that is what they call them) to Saudi Arabia, working as a civilian air traffic control instructor there.

The kids and I have opted to stay in Illinois. Women in Saudi Arabia aren't allowed to drive... among many other things. If you know me, you know I like road trips, so not being able to drive was all I needed to hear to realize that I might be better off staying in the States this time. So, I will be using my deployment coping skills for the next 12 months starting mid-September. But the civilian job circumstances and perks are a lot better than those that the military provides, so we are excited about this opportunity. And nervous. But more excited than nervous... I think. Shit, I don't know...

I think I need a sign that reads: Discombobulated. Please come back later.

So, where did this "tenacious" description come from?

Since college, whenever a male supervisor or colleague disagreed with me, the (printable) description that seemed to be used the most often to describe me was "tenacious." I found it odd that completely unrelated people would come to the same conclusion on multiple occasions over the course of a decade. The word choice was not meant as a compliment and I still have no idea why. In my opinion, tenacity is a delightful thing to have (see the definition above) and I am happy to have it. So, to conclude this correspondence, I sign off with: